Emily Maitlis says Prince Andrew ‘lost respect’ after interview

The Amazon Prime series comes just months after a rival dramatisation of the 2019 Newsnight interview, Scoop, was released on Netflix.

That version starred Rufus Sewell as Prince Andrew, Gillian Anderson as Emily Maitlis and Billie Piper as producer Sam McAlister.

But whereas Scoop focused on the part played by McAlister in securing the interview, A Very Royal Scandal is centred on Maitlis’s own role in the process.

Maitlis, who is executive producer for the new series, is diplomatic when asked about McAlister’s version, insisting “they’re very different beasts”.

But she said there were elements in Scoop that she didn’t recognise, including scenes which showed her and her grey whippet Moody in the office.

“I’m really sorry to disappoint,” she said. “In my perfect world, obviously, dogs would be everywhere, but Moody has never been in the Newsnight studio.”

But even Maitlis’s version took creative liberties.

She pointed out one scene in which her on-screen husband is heard snoring while she types furiously on her phone next to him.

“There was no snoring, I have to say, in my marriage or, you know, in the bedroom,” she notes.

The entire Newsnight interview can still be easily watched online, external.

Which begs the question: Do we need a dramatisation, or indeed two, if you can just watch the real thing?

“The interview was one hour, in one moment, in one day, in one year,” Maitlis said.

“And [the drama] is actually an accumulation of consequences and results and fallout that we’re only just managing to understand.

“Now, I still think that the story itself isn’t actually finished, but this is the nearest you’ll get to kind of understanding, I guess, the beginning of it, and just what it did to all of us.”

A Very Royal Scandal is out on Prime Video on 19 September.